Wrecked Beaches Could Aid Plovers

Protected Plover Gets More Room to Nest

A file photo of a piping plover at Breezy Point in the Rockaways.
David Speiser

By

Megan Buerger

April 19, 2013 11:02 p.m. ET

Superstorm Sandy's flattening of some of the region's oceanfront dunes may have paved the way for a resurgence in shorebirds, especially the endangered piping plover.

Bird experts and parks managers say the beaches that took Sandy's hardest blows—spots such as Breezy Point in the Rockaways and the eastern portion of Fire Island—have strong potential this year for nesting habitat. The birds began to arrive this month for their five-month breeding season.

"This community has had a bad year," said Dave Avrin, chief of resources management at Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes parts of Breezy Point. "There's no guarantee we're right about this, but if we are, it would be a silver lining."

Officials at the Fire Island National Seashore say Sandy, by pushing sand around, added 400 acres of potential plover habitat to the island.

The piping plover has been listed by the federal government as an endangered species since 1986. The birds' Atlantic Coast breeding period is April through September, placing it in conflict with many people who enjoy the shore. Fledging plovers, which resemble cotton balls, can easily be missed, as can plover nests, scratched out by the birds on open stretches of sand and typically lined with beach stones and bits of shell.

ENLARGE

The dunes at Breezy Point in 2009.
Ron Bourque

Progress in protection of the plovers is measured in modest numbers. Among the area sites where the birds nest, Breezy Point officials last year counted 15 pairs of nesting plovers, and state managers counted 16 pairs at Democrat Point, on the South Shore of Long Island near Fire Island Inlet.

This summer will mark the first season of Be a Good Egg, a program run by the New Jersey and New York City Audubon Societies to encourage people to share the beach with nesting birds, said John Rowden, a biologist with the society.

"Nothing preachy, just a gentle reminder of how great it is that we have this beach bird nesting in what's technically New York City," Mr. Rowden said. "I mean, that's pretty wild."

ENLARGE

The dunes, post-Sandy
Megan Buerger/The Wall Street Journal

While the birds are welcomed by natural-resource managers and bird lovers, they represent an inconvenience to many others. Large sections of beaches are fenced off for months to safeguard the birds' nests. "Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken" goes the bumper sticker occasionally sighted on the East End of Long Island.

"Piping Plovers are not beloved everywhere," said Ron Bourque, a former president of New York City Audubon who lives near Jamaica Bay. "In Breezy Point, like many beach towns, people resent them because they're the reason behind all of the restrictions during the summer. There's a bit of tension between the community and the Parks Service."

At Breezy Point, some of the restrictions include a ban on ATVs on federally protected land from March 15 through August, and no picnicking, kite-flying or ball-playing near the nests. No dogs—leashed or not—are allowed on protected beaches.

"At the beginning when the restrictions were first put in, I think it was viewed as a real burden to the community. But as time has passed, the outlook has changed," said Steven Greenberg, 61 years old, a resident of Breezy Point and past president of the Breezy Point Cooperative, which manages the neighborhood. "The fact is, having these birds in our back yard is kind of cool. And it's good for our kids to see that we're working with the government to protect an endangered species."

Steve Sinkevich, a senior biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who monitors the nests at Breezy Point, said the agency, the parks service and the cooperative collaborate to protect the birds with the least amount of recreational interference.

The agency posts signs near protected areas that explain the endangered bird in hopes that people will be less likely to ignore the fencing.

"There are always going to be issues or people who don't care," Mr. Sinkevich said, "but that's any beach. I don't think it's malicious, I think people may just not know they're there. So the best thing we can do is try to educate people."

Because Breezy Point hadn't been hit by a storm of Sandy's magnitude for decades, piping-plover habitat there had shrunk. As dunes build up—absent a storm to knock them down—they shift closer to the high-tide line, and nesting space shrinks. As of last year, there were only a few yards between the primary dune and the water line for birds to nest. To an extent, Sandy reversed that problem.

Authorities tend to fence off what they consider the entire potential breeding area. At Breezy Point, the difference this year is that so much of the fenced area appears to be high-quality breeding habitat, Mr. Avrin explained.

"There are many reasons to anticipate more fledglings," Mr. Avrin said. "It's going to be an interesting summer, definitely."

In recent years, Breezy Point has seen between 10 and 15 plover nests each year, with about four eggs per nest and one fledged chick. Last year, there were 15 pairs with nine chicks.

Mr. Sinkevich said Thursday he had seen 10 individual birds so far this month—perhaps five nesting pairs. Sighting actual nests, however, is likely still a few weeks off.

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